New national consortium forms from Ecosystem Services Market program

Today, ten private-sector companies and nonprofit organizations have announced their intent to join together to form the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium (ESMC). The ESMC's Founding Circle is comprised of ADM, Bunge, Cargill, General Mills, Indigo Agriculture, McDonald's USA, Noble Research Institute, LLC, Soil Health Institute and The Nature Conservancy. Mars Incorporated joined the Consortium at the Legacy Partner level. The collective Founding Circle and Legacy Partner members represent a diverse cross-section of the agricultural supply chain and seek to advance the development of a market-based approach to promoting land stewardship to build healthy soils, soil carbon sequestration and water conservation on the globe's working lands. The launch of ESMC builds on the earlier formation of the Ecosystem Services Market Program, a product of more than 20 months of industry and sector leaders developing resources and information to establish a successful ecosystems market. The planned market offers the singular focus of enabling and encouraging farmers and ranchers to adopt and sustain conservation management practices to improve soil health, reduce GHG emissions, and improve related water quality and reduce water use. Adoption of such practices across millions of acres of the world's working lands would have a lasting global impact, creating positive social, economic and environmental outcomes...MORE